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Cooking utensils? These are the Cadillacs

Exclusive: Roger Simmermaker highlights centuries-old manufacturer

Roger Simmermaker is the author of "How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism." He also writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for his website, and is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union. Roger has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and US News & World Report, among many other publications.

It was way back in 1819 that Jacob Bromwell was established, and that makes it America’s oldest housewares company. That’s right, for nearly two centuries Jacob Bromwell has been manufacturing authentic kitchen, camping and fireplace products in the U.S.

Throughout all of those years, it has played its part in making America’s economy a prosperous one. The company knows that making things here is how to do it, and so it has always kept its manufacturing on America’s shores. That’s one reason that Jacob Bromwell definitely deserves consideration from patriotic consumers.

For your kitchen, Jacob Bromwell makes authentic flour sifters, colanders, pie plates, cookie sheets, cooling racks, funnels, hand graters, flat shredders, popcorn bowls, rolling pins, and even a handcrafted cutting board that is made from seven different blocks of solid American maple! In short, if you want it for your kitchen, Jacob Bromwell will likely have it.

Maybe your family prefers quality time outdoors. Maybe you enjoy sitting together around a campfire. For those family outings and camping trips, Jacob Bromwell’s extensive selection of campfire products is worth checking out. On the website you’ll find everything from authentic popcorn poppers and chestnut roasters to frontier frying pans and pyramid toasters. It even has an Americana BBQ set, an old-fashioned potato baker, old-fashioned popcorn poppers, and that camping classic, the tin cup.

Jacob Bromwell established his company and began making things in America a mere three years after Thomas Jefferson famously said, “…experience has now taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort…” That was in 1816.

Fast-forward all the way up to 1972, when the Republican Party platform stated, “We deplore the practice of locating plants in foreign countries solely to take advantage of low wage rates in order to produce goods primarily for sale in the United States.”

By that time, Jacob Bromwell had already been producing in the United States for over 150 years, avoiding the temptation to offshore production all along.

More and more Americans today deplore the practice of outsourcing solely to take advantage of selling to the American market while undercutting American producers who proudly employ American workers. Few American companies have exclusively employed only Americans for longer than Jacob Bromwell has. This classic American company is also the oldest manufacturer of tin and stainless steel products in the United States!

But if that is not reason enough to patronize a patriotic company like Jacob Bromwell, here are two more: it backs up its handcrafted products with a lifetime guarantee and ships orders over $150 for free. You can even sign up online and get monthly specials e-mailed right to your inbox. And now, the company is offering a special 10 percent discount through the end of this year by simply using the code SUPPORTUSA10 at checkout.

As patriotic Americans consider the ongoing and consistent trade deficits that have become so commonplace to America’s economy (we last ran a trade surplus in 1975), many wish that our nation would do more to expand manufacturing across the country and return to the days when we actually exported more products than we imported.

One way to create more manufacturing jobs is to direct your consumer dollars toward the companies that already produce in America, allowing them to expand their businesses even further and hire more American workers. In my mind, we should give preference to the companies that have proven their dedication to the American workforce over several years and are truly proud to produce in America.

What’s the best way for us as patriotic consumers to exercise our power? It’s to vote with our dollars and channel those dollars to companies that have kept America working, growing, and prospering. And aside from almost 200 years of making excellent housewares products, that’s what Jacob Bromwell is all about.